Nowadays print systems provide an estimated required amount of supply material per print job. Print systems also provide a current status of the supply material levels in the printing system, for example in volume percentage of the supply material input holder or in weight percentage of a fully loaded supply material input holder. Nowadays print systems also provide a job schedule of scheduled jobs in time ahead. Nowadays on print systems also a maintenance action like reloading has to be carried out when the supply material input holder becomes empty. However, the operator wants to plan further in time, for example he wants to plan maintenance actions for a complete print job queue of scheduled print jobs.
A supply material may be an image recording material for printing a digital image upon. Such an image recording material may be paper, plastic, overhead film, transparent material, textile, hard board, wood, etc. The image recording material may be in the form of sheets or rolls. The supply material input holder for the image recording material may be an input holder for sheets or a roll, for example a tray, a roll holder, etc.
A supply material may be a marking material to be deposited on the image recording material. Such a marking material may be toner, metal, ink or other fluidal material. The marking material may be in the form of drops or particles. The supply material input holder for the marking material may be a toner container like a toner bottle, an ink container like an ink cartridge, an ink bag, etc.
A supply material may be a finishing material used when finishing the printed product. Such a finishing material may be a staple, a paper clip, a binder, glue, or other finishing material. The supply material input holder for the finishing material may be a staple holder, a paper clip holder, a binder holder, a glue syringe, etc.
The printing system may be an inkjet printing system, an electro-graphical printing system, a nano-particle printing system, etc. The printing system may be suitable for printing on sheets of image recording material and/or on rolls of image recording material.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a method for accurately predicting the moment that a supply material input holder becomes empty.